DAYTONA BEACH, Fla – Late last season, Obaika Racing announced plans to race a full Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season in 2019. While they didn’t have a charter, they still planned to contest in all 36 races with Tanner Berryhill as their driver.

Even on Wednesday, the team held a media availability in the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte announcing a sponsor for their Daytona 500 efforts.

48 hours later, the team announces via a statement that they won’t be racing in the Daytona 500 after all.

“Tanner is a very intelligent and motivated young man, and I am very excited to what he can accomplish during his rookie season,” said team owner, Victor Obaika back in December. “The Obaika Racing team is working hard through the winter to put fast cars on track next year, and I have every confidence that Tanner is going to work hard to improve every race and get the most out of our equipment. 2019 is going to be a great year for this team.”

Unfortunately, the team made a statement heading into this weekend that as an underfunded team that they didn’t have the resources to make it work to get down to Daytona in time.

The team stated that the “odds of making the Daytona 500 did not seem reasonable enough” to stretch their resources so they felt better to wait to use their assets on another race.

The problem is, the team knew Wednesday that this would be a stretch and they continued on anyways. That’s why all this is completely confusing and irresponsible.